A 12-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of the 'horrible spontaneous murder' of a homeless man.

Sharron Townsend is accused of shooting Thomas Trent once in the head as the 54-year-old sat in a disused car park in the city of Jacksonville in northern Florida on June 28.

Police say two youths were spotted on surveillance video from a nearby building leaving the scene.

A 16-year-old boy was later picked up on an unrelated robbery charge and reportedly confessed to being one of the individuals in the footage and later identified the other as Townsend.

Murder: Sharron Townsend, 12, (left) is accused of shooting homeless Thomas Trent (right) once in the head as the 54-year-old sat in a disused car park in the city of Jacksonville in northern Florida on June 28

Townsend was arrested and charged with Mr Trent's murder, with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office saying the boy has already admitted the crime.

Officers were quoted as saying Townsend did not know Mr Trent, and that his killing appeared to be a random act of violence and not a bungled robbery.

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'It's a horrific event,' said said Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Assistant Chief Chris Butler. 'Horrific for the victim... but also you're talking about a 12-year-old child,' he added.

Mr Trent's body was found in a disused parking lot on 103rd Street between Ricker and Firestone.

Mr Butler
says surveillance video from a nearby dental care office and a tattoo
business showed two young men walking near the site of Mr Trent's killing at 2.25am on June 28.

Six
minutes later, the cameras captured the two running behind a
strip-mall near the site where Mr Trent's body was found 'with their shorts
on their heads,' a sheriff's arrest report states.

'The suspect gave admissions, and he
identified himself in the video and being present and involved in the
murder,' Mr Butler said of the 12-year-old.

Location: Thomas Trent's body was found in this disused parking lot in the city of Jacksonville in northern Florida. Police say two youths were spotted on surveillance video from a nearby building leaving the scene

The report
also said that the other boy in the video - identified as a 16-year-old
who was being held in jail on an unrelated charge - was found and
identified Townsend as the one who shot Mr Trent.

The
weapon used in the shooting has not been recovered, Butler said. He
said the 16-year-old is not a suspect in Mr Trent's slaying but didn't
elaborate.

'The suspect gave admissions, and he
identified himself in the video and being present and involved in the
murder,' Mr Butler said of the 12-year-old.

Mr
Trent's sister told the Florida Times-Union that her brother was kind
and intelligent, and had just been released from the hospital when he
was killed.

He had been suffering from health problems related to alcoholism, she added.